1 On Jun 27, 08:24 pm, Josh wrote:

To make clear what happened at the final adoption of the budget tonight:
1) The County Commission, without comment or explanation – beyond what has been quoted in newspaper and radio since most don’t say anything at the Commission meetings – made a final decision to completely eliminate any supplement to the DA’s pay. That ends the discussion for at least a year.
For my part I will continue to do my job both as state District Attorney and the administrator of 18 county employees whether the county pays me or not.

2) To answer Tryan’s question above: The budget for the DAs office had NO new positions this year. Two positions were added in the middle of what is now last (06-07) year’s budget to coincide with the ascension to the bench of Judge Matyas. During the Budget Committee Hearings in May the decision was made that those two EXISTING positions would be the very FIRST to be cut – at any time during the budget year – if the county management determined there was a budget shortfall or revenues were somehow decreased.
I had begged the Budget Committee, but more impotantly the Commissioners whose ultimate decision it is, to follow THEIR own budget policies which state that in the event of a budget shortfall there is an order in which staff are laid off with public safery departments (of which the District Attorney’s Office is one) would be the LAST to be cut.
Commissioner Patrick’s motion sought to simply have those two positions subject to stndard budget policies and not an exception. They refused, giving again no reason. There is no appeal from this decision and we will just go forward and do the best job we can under the circumstances.

3 On Jun 28, 04:54 am, Josh wrote:

Well, “Sean,” it is unlawful under Oregon law for any public employee to conduct or solicit political activities while working on government time. Although elected officials are exempt from this rule an elected official is prohibited from asking or soliciting other public employees from engaging in any such political activities during work periods. I have never asked employees in my office to support a particu;ar candidate or issue and I never would. It would be both illegal and unethical. On their own time public employees are free to engage in political activities so long as they don’t use public resources for that purpose.

5 On Jun 28, 07:59 am, puzzled wrote:

what the hell? what charter change? who said that?

7 On Jun 28, 10:50 pm, Mom of Three wrote:

On another note, can someone tell me if the monies were approved so that a new crematorium could be installed at the animal shelter? The old one is in such bad condition, it almost caused a major fire.